Alcorn McBride Knowledge Base

Category » WinScript

There were 18 questions found in this category:

1. Can I program your equipment with a Mac, Sun or Silicon Graphics computer?
   While our controllers can communicate with any device with an RS-232 port, they must be programmed using Winscript (which is only available for Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT and Windows XP.
2. Does Alcorn McBride software (Winscript, Binloop, AMI Explorer) work under Windows XP?
   All Alcorn McBride software has been tested through Windows XP. Most software will work under Windows NT/2000. We have found some instances of specific hardware not working with our software under Windows 2000. If you have a problem under Windows 2000, you are advised to try a computer running W ...
3. Does Winscript work with Windows 2000?
   Usually. If you are having problems downloading with Windows 2000, you may try to alter the download settings at Tools...Options...Communications...Advanced to find a valid combination. If you are unable to download after altering the settings, it may be an incompatibility between Windows 2000, ...
4. How can I create a candle flicker flame effect using a DMX Machine?
   Create several looping sequences of different lengths (i.e. 17 frames, 25 frames, 38 frames) and let them 'argue' over the value to which a single DMX channel from the lighting dimmer should be set. With some experimentation, you can product an almost infinitely variable, dramatic effect. And th ...
5. How do I do all of that cool stuff with the LCD display?
   The LCD display allows positioning of the cursor and display of state variables in left- or right-justified format. Using a state variable or flag to determine what text to put in a particular spot is also a useful technique. It's usually best to make all of the strings that can appear in a cert ...
6. How do I trigger a sequence at a particular time of day or day of the week?
   You can either use a third party real time clock module, such as the one made by ESE (see the appendix of the http://www.alcorn.com/library/manuals/index.html]Show Control User's Guide for more information or you can configure a PC to send the current time to the show controller's state variable ...
7. How do I use the Time of Day coming from my ESE clock in my show controller?
   The ESE protocol that you can assign to any given port sets the following variables with the current date and time of day: var31 - seconds var30 - minutes var29 - hours var28 - year var27 - day var26 - month So use these variables (rename them if you like) as your date variables.
8. How should I script a show with multiple controllers?
   The easiest way is to start by thinking of one controller as the master. The choice of a master should be determined by what triggers the most sequences, or where the logic needs to reside. Usually, this means that a V16 is the master and IO64s are the slaves. But for a show with a lot of logic ...
9. I want to program Alcorn McBride equipment using my laptop computer, but it's equipped only with USB
   There are a couple of USB-to-Serial converters on the market but most are not compatible with the Alcorn 9-bit serial protocol (which is used to download to the controllers). There are two options: 1. Obtain a 9-bit compatible USB-to-Serial converter. We have tested and approved this http://www. ...
10. Is it possible to open a file retrieved from a show controller in Winscript?
    If you did not originally download the readable version of the script, called the 'archive' then there is no way to upload a readable version of the original script. The DAT file is a compiled version of the script, and there is no way to retrieve the original script from this compiled version. ...
11. We're having problems using the 8 bit AMI control protocol with the IO64. The IO64 never answers.
    Here is an example 'Start Sequence #2' frame you can send to the I/O 64 into its REMOTE port. Just as a very simple test, have sequence #2 turn on output 2 or something like that. 0xF5 0x00 0x01 0x02 0x18 0x01 0x1C This looks for an ACK/NAK 0xF5 0x00 0x02 0x02 0x18 0x01 0x1D This looks for the w ...
12. What is AMInet?
    The purpose of this protocol is to overcome the limitations of Alcorn McBride's existing serial protocols, and to extend its functionality to support interfaces other than serial. This protocol combines the best elements of our existing protocols, and adds elements from other protocols to enhanc ...
13. What is the best way to minimize the size of a script?
    Most events take about the same amount of space -- around 6 to 8 bytes -- but anything that contains an ascii string uses a lot of storage. If you are sending the same string from many different sequences it would save space to put it in its own sequence and start that sequence.
14. What products do the protocol files support for serial communications from your show controllers?
    The V16+, V4+, V2+, Interactivator, IO64 and DMX Machine are all programmed using WinScript, a Windows front end. You can create the protocol for almost any serial devices by typing in a simple text file and that device becomes a part of WinScript. To speed things along, we have already created ...
15. Where can I find information on the the DMXRamp Show Controller Event?
    Information on the DMXRamp event along with other Built-In Serial Events can be found in the http://www.alcorn.com/library/manuals/man_scguide.pdf]Show Control User's Guide in section 5-17.
16. Where could I find the correct syntax and commands for controlling my equipment with yours?
    We use protocol files to enable our show controllers to communicate with other equipment. They are simply text files that you can edit using a text editor like notepad.exe, which is bundled with Windows. If we currently do not have a protocol file for your equipment inftp://www.alcorn.com/pub/so ...
17. Why does my pulse command keep screwing up the output?
    The pulse command doesn't actually turn on the output for a period of time, it inverts it. So if there is any chance that the pulse event can run when the output is already on (for example, two sequences controlling the same output, even if both are already trying to pulse it), then it's easy fo ...
18. Why does my WinScript file compile perfectly, yet I can't download it consistently?
    The Winscript Builds 809 through 811 have a bug in them that causes the repeated download of an unedited script to display the 'Download Failed, NACKed by Show Control Unit!' message. The latest version of http://www.alcorn.com/support/software.html]Winscript has resolved this issue.